Bowling Green comes at right time for Flintshire

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Flintshire, the dominant winner of the Grade 1 Manhattan on Belmont Stakes Day, will meet four rivals when he makes his second start for trainer Chad Brown in Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Bowling Green Stakes at 1 3/8 miles on turf.

Flintshire is using the Bowling Green as a stepping-stone to the Grade 1 Sword Dancer Invitational on Aug. 27, a race he won here last year when in the barn of Andre Fabre.

Brown said he liked the spacing of the Bowling Green to the Sword Dancer and then to the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic on Oct. 1 at Belmont as opposed to waiting for the Grade 1 Arlington Million on Aug. 13 and then waiting again for the Joe Hirsch.

Those entered against him in the Bowling Green are Twilight Eclipse, Grand Tito, Can’thelpbelieving, and Danish Dynaformer.

Twilight Eclipse has twice faced Flintshire, finishing third to him, beaten 5 3/4 lengths, in the 2015 Sword Dancer and 1 1/4 lengths behind him when Flintshire and Twilight Eclipse finished second and third behind Main Sequence in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Turf.